Modelling the potential impact of mask use in schools and society on COVID-19 control in the UK

  1. J. Panovska-Griffiths
  2. C. C. Kerr
  3. W. Waites
  4. R. M. Stuart
  5. D. Mistry
  6. D. Foster
  7. D. J. Klein
  8. R. M. Viner
  9. C. Bonell

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Abstract

As the UK reopened after the first wave of the COVID-19 epidemic, crucial questions emerged around the role for ongoing interventions, including test-trace-isolate (TTI) strategies and mandatory masks. Here we assess the importance of masks in secondary schools by evaluating their impact over September 1–October 23, 2020. We show that, assuming TTI levels from August 2020 and no fundamental changes in the virus’s transmissibility, adoption of masks in secondary schools would have reduced the predicted size of a second wave, but preventing it would have required 68% or 46% of those with symptoms to seek testing (assuming masks’ effective coverage 15% or 30% respectively). With masks in community settings but not secondary schools, the required testing rates increase to 76% and 57%.

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  3. Version published to 10.1038/s41598-021-88075-0
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.28.20202937v2 on medRxiv
  5. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.09.28.20202937: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    For the purposes of the analyses presented in this paper, we used Covasim’s default parameters, pre-populated demographic data on population age structures and household sizes by country, and with four population contact network layers for schools, workplaces, households and community settings.
    Covasim’s
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations of our work: The analyses presented here have several limitations. First, while we have made an effort to model the UK epidemic, some of the parameters we have used are from other settings. Secondly, as with any modelling study, we have made a series of assumptions within the modelling framework, for example concerning the proportion of infections which are symptomatic, and the susceptibility and infectiousness of children compared to adults. Large uncertainty regarding the proportion of asymptomatic infection remains with recent evidence suggesting that asymptomatic incidence has a wide range of 2-57%. In our model, we have assumed that symptomatic infections account for 70% of onward-transmitted infections, as a number of other models have assumed [26-29] and that development of symptoms is age-dependent analogous to other studies [26-29]. The model considers mask wearing to be uniform in the sense that, for a given level of coverage in a subpopulation (say a school), the average transmission probability is reduced by the same amount. In reality, there are four possible cases for an interaction between a susceptible and an infectious individual: both are wearing a mask, neither are wearing a mask, or one or the other is wearing a mask. The transmission probability will be different for each of these four cases. Because the way in which transmission probability can be expected to vary is not well-understood, we use ‘effective coverage’ as a catch-all for the four...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  6. Version published to 10.1101/2020.09.28.20202937v1 on medRxiv